Sandals Barbados

Here’s my honest review starting with the best bits. I stayed in a Sandals Barbados Penthouse suite in early September. Hotel was fairly quiet I guess compared to peak season. Staff were fantastic in complete contrast to what other reviews stated. Sandals has a lot of staff and it shows. Nobody passes you without a smile or a good morning. Never had to wait long for anything. I couldn’t praise them more. Hotel facilities were again fantastic. Lots of pools, bars and restaurants. Don’t be fooled by the Sandals Barbados (SB) and Sandals Royal (SR) names. It is essentially one big hotel with an imaginary line between them. Nobody knows who is from what hotel. I stayed in BS but used both sides the same amount. The only difference between the 2 is essentially the room and therefore the price. Restaurants were first class. Evening meals were right up there with high end restaurants. Plenty of daytime options too. Bars served anything you wanted and using branded spirits. Very easy to go over the top eating and drinking on day 1. We had a Penthouse suite at BS which is top floor of the block facing the sea. Pretty sure the only difference between the Penthouse and the other ocean suites was the floor I was on. I don’t believe any of the BR rooms face the see (open to being corrected though). To be honest, I didn’t think it should have been called a suite. It was a large room with no separation between the bed and couch area. Full bar in the room with full size bottles. Never touched this though as there is so much available in the hotel. Couple of gripes with the maintenance in the room resulted in me complaining quite strongly when my first complaint went unresolved. . Everything was then sorted in a few hours. Speaking to others, I think they would benefit from more regular room inspections. Bed was very comfortable, but mattress sat on a wooden base which stuck out on the corners and was not visible under the sheet. Kept banging my shins when walking past. A four poster would have resolved this but although some photos show it, I didn’t have one. Didn’t use the balcony soaking tup as I reckon it would have taken an hour to fill it. Room needed stationary like other hotels and hotel information was non-existent. No hotel tv channel either. Given that we were told to book restaurants ( 4 needed booking, others didn’t) on first day, it was impossible to work out which of the 20 restaurants we wanted to eat in. A little thing but Sandals really need to have hotel information in the room. Yes there are daily orienteering sessions but there is no way you can commit every pool, bar, restaurant, and other facility to memory. Room was very dark with only 2 bedside lamps. Lamp in doorway did not light up room and found myself having to use phone torch when I arrived as it went dark about 6pm. Complained and got a lamp delivered. I assumed my lamp was just missing rather than every room being this dark. Minor things which Sandals can improve with more regular maintenance and standards inspections. The usual, sunbed towel thing you get at most hotels. People ‘reserving’ their sunbeds by the pool by putting a towel on it and then not using it for most of the day. Beach towels were freely available and therefore people would leave them on the sunbed effectively blocking it out even after they’d gone. My view – supply beach towels to room to encourage people to take them with them. Pools were plentiful and well maintained. Hotel grounds were exceptionally well maintained. Not quite sure how they managed to keep them looking so good. As I’ve said before, restaurants were excellent and there are 4 that you have to book although the others are just as good. The Japanese, was not very Japanese though apart from the chopsticks. No menu here but chef cooks in front of you whilst 12 of you sit around the cooking area and places it on your plate. French did have some French items on menu but again, the food was not very French. Having said that, I loved what I had at the French restaurant. Buch’s were definitely the most popular. One on BS and one on BR. Book a night in each is my advice. You are limited to one booking per restaurant per week to ensure everyone gets an opportunity. As I was in a Penthouse suite, I had a separate customer service lounge. Didn’t really see the point as everything was just as easy at the main front desks where staff were just as helpful. Just made me feel more important, I guess. I hired a car and was warned parking was tight on the BS side so was advised to use the car park on the BR side. Also used by staff but always found space. BR recognises your BS room number when leaving and entering hotel. Car park is 3-4 mins walk from BR exit. Security staff were really nice and got to know me after a couple of days. Entertainment was good when it was on. BR has a large stage but was not in use most nights. When it was in use, live bands were very good and popular with guests. Beach party was good with fire show. Again very popular. Walked past the piano a couple of times where pianist would play anything for you to sing along to. A load of Brits butchering ‘Sweet Caroline’ was all I needed to decide I wasn’t going to like the karaoke. I would say about half the guests were British, 40% Americans and 10% from other parts of the world. Beach had yellow flag every day which pretty much prevented going into the sea but I already knew this from other reviews. Seems Dec Jan and Feb are the only times you can use the water sport facilities due to the calmer seas at that time. I did go into the sea for a photo but the beach has large amounts of seaweed to walk over and in the sea, it was just masses of it washing against your legs. Didn’t do it again as I needed a shower to get it all off. Plenty of sunbeds available on the beach but not used much by guests as they wanted to dip in and out of the water which meant they had to be by a pool. There was a 6th floor infinity pool but when I went up there, there were no shades over the sunbeds so I found another pool to sit by. May have just been the day I went up. Pub was really authentic. Even had proper UK pint glasses. Pool and table tennis tables were dotted around. Snooker in the pub. We used the bowling alley although 2 out of the 4 lanes weren’t working and ours stopped working after a few minutes leaving one working. Was never busy in there though so just had to wait 10 minutes for the others to finish. Bit odd that I put this at then end but on arrival, I found a Sandals desk on the arrivals forecourt outside the airport. They had my name on their list and we waited for others from same flight. About 40-50 people I’d say. Large coach took us to BR first and then the BS. Bags were taken on different transport. After check in we went to rooms and then had to wait for bags which took 90 minutes. I exited airport at 3.15pm and got bags at 6.30pm by which time it had gone dark. If you’re on a BA flight, I’d consider using an Uber to get to hotel as it’s only 20 minutes in a taxi. Cost you £25 but you’d be in and out of your room 2 hours earlier. Check out was easy. Didn’t need hotel transport as I had a car and they moved my bags from BS reception to BR reception for me as it was closer to where I had parked the car. After check out, they look after your bags and give you an electronic wrist band which allows you to use a dedicated area containing large lockers for a change of clothes and very spacious showers. This allowed you to use the hotel facilities and get showered and changed when it’s time to leave. Really nice option if you are not flying until later in the day. Toiletries provided but take a beach towel with you for your shower. If Sandals read this, Bit more preventative maintenance in the room. Hotel information and stationery needed in the room More utilisation of stage area for entertainment Other than that, really pleased with my stay. Would I stay here again? Definitely.

We have been to several sandals resorts and this one was by far the worst. They are remolding one of the buildings and the noice and grounds were not kept well at all. The majority of the staff looked miserable and were not friendly at all, we can only point out about 3 staff that truly made a difference in our entire stay. They are short staffed and you can tell! The pub had no air conditioning and everywhere you went the closed places down at least half an hour prior to closing time. The accommodations or even staff trying to make your stay better was worse every experience we had. Customer satisfaction is everything and this place I will NEVER return to. Staff are lazy and will hardly go a live and beyond to please guests. We had a staff member tell us to go serve our own soda at the machine when asked. We had staff tell us to hurry up because they were closing down in a few minutes. Day two of our trip every bar we went to had ran out of coconut water and there was only one bar tender our entire trip that went out of her way to find some for us. One of the buffets had roaches in the kitchen area where they were cooking the eggs we were ordering. I’ve never been so disgusted at a sandals. South coast Jamaica will always be our favorite place, even with the long drive from the airport the staff there make your stay special, we booked our next trip to Jamaica and that will be our 4th time there. Don’t waste your $ or time with sandals Barbados. Their team there have lots to work on to make their guests have a better experience. Super disappointing! 👎🏽

We had a couple employees that went out of there way to make sure we had a good time. Chevrene and Othneil.

Such a beautiful resort but what really made our stay were the people. Oshin, Aaron from watersports, Shainto and Quadro were some of the loveliest people- always smiling, checking in on us and making sure we were having fun. They made us feel welcomed and were a huge part of what made the holiday so special. They were amazing and they deserve a massive thank you! ❤️ The grounds are beautiful, there’s lots to do and fun entertainment by the infinity pool with a great DJ. La Parisienne and the Jerk Shack were my favourite food spots. Already missing it! 🌴

We had a wonderful stay and our butler service was great! They helped us re-tie the knot on the beach and they did awesome.